Category: Tutorials and Reviews

Click here to download templates (2.6MB)

Seeing as it’s Christmas time I thought I’d share some of my storyboard templates. I use them to make quick collages like the ones in Matt and Nikki’s wedding post and this fun one of Eve and her groovy shades back during the summer. You can do them by eye in Photoshop but it’s a bit of a pain so I find these templates make the whole process a lot easier and they really help if you want to use shapes other than straightforward squares or rectangles. Plus, once you have a template you can recreate the same look again and again.

So, if you click the image above it will prompt you to download a zip file. Once downloaded, unzip the files (they are PSD files so they will only work in Photoshop I’m afraid) and you will find 8 different templates to get you started, once you see how easy they are you can start to change the shapes around and create pretty much any shape or configuration that takes your fancy. The secret to using the templates is Clipping Masks and I’ve included instructions with each template.

If you don’t want to download mine, the basic idea of clipping masks is that you create a shape in Photoshop…you can do this with a brush, a shape tool, the marquee selector, text….whatever you use just create a shape and then in the layer directly above this shape paste in the photograph you want to use:

In the layers palette, right-click your photo and choose “Create Clipping Mask”:

and you will be able to move and resize your photo to fit inside it. Easy!

Happy Christmas :o)

This time last year I posted my list of books read in 2006. It was the first time I’d ever sat down and reviewed my reading for the year and it was interesting to me just how many duds there were and how it was all kind of meandering. So after making that list I resolved to make better use of my reading time, to try and read books that really grabbed me, not just to pick up whatever came to hand. Looking back now, I see that 2007 was far better, hardly any duds at all and most of them back at the beginning of the year. I’m putting a lot of that down to my discovery of the wonderful bookmooch.com, I have had so much fun with that site. I’ve saved so much money on books this year and still have shelves groaning with new books to be read.

So, here’s my list of (mostly) fiction read in 2007.

The Highs:

David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
Excellent, I love Mr. Dickens and this is one of his best. Made me cry on the DART.

Water For Elephants by Sara Gruen
Lovely story of life in the circus during the Depression. Funny and thrilling. Also a poignant insight into what it’s like to grow old.

The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas by John Boyne
Anyone not read this yet? I think I’ve given copies to everyone I know.

A Long Way Gone: Memoirs Of A Boy Soldier by Ishmael Beah
The only non-fiction on this list. The story of a boy soldier from Sierra Leone. Horrifying but wonderful, nobody is beyond redemption.

Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
I’m a sucker for this kind of book it reminded me a lot of The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood. Set in a possible not-too-distant future, it’s a mystery and a love story and I read it in a couple of days.

Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows by JK Rowling
Ah, yes, I’m a Potter fan it’s true and this one didn’t disappoint at all. I suppose if you like him you’ll have read it and if you don’t, well, you’ll have run a mile.

Love Falls by Esther Freud
This one came from reading RedWineGums and his linking to an article in the Guardian. Esther Freud captures the feelings of being a teenage girl so well and that time when you’re desperate to be an adult yet you’re still as vulnerable as a child.

Boy’s Life by Robert McCammon
Great storyteller whose books are quite difficult to find over here. Yay for bookmooch! This book is a magical story of childhood…made me laugh and cry.

World War Z by Max Brooks
I wish there were more books like this one but then I’m a huge fan of zombies. They really scare me and so I can’t get enough of them. Max Brooks wrote the companion book to Shaun of the Dead but this one isn’t in the same funny vein. This is a collection of short interviews that tell the story of the Zombie War that almost wipes out mankind. Very clever and I flew through it. Each individual story could have been a novel in and of itself.

The Mid-List

All of the following were enjoyable, some more than others, but they weren’t my absolute favourites so they’re here in the middle listed in order of preference:

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
Neverwhere by Neil Gaimen
Odd Thomas by Dean Koontz
The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold
The Raw Shark Texts by Steven Hall
The Gunslinger by Stephen King
Howl’s Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones
The City Of Ember by Jeanne Duprau
A Short History Of Tractors In Ukrainian by Marin Lewycka
The House At Riverton by Kate Morton
When The Wind Blows by James Patterson
The Lake House by James Patterson

The Lows

Wicked by Gregory Maguire
Just didn’t like this one at all. I found myself having to force myself back to the page every time. The characters and the story were all a little distant and flat to me.

Labyrinth by Kate Mosse
Snore! I didn’t make it past half way. It lay forgotten by my bed and I was happy to send it on its way when someone mooched it from me. I think I was hoping for something like The Historian but this wasn’t half as clever or well-written.

Midnight Cactus by Bella Pollen
Not sure what attracted me to this one in the first place. It wasn’t too bad until it would get to the romantic parts and then it morphed into some awful clichéd Mills and Boon. I can’t even remember if I bothered to finish it.

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Right now I’m reading Lisey’s Story by Stephen King and Ursula Under by Ingrid Hill (as recommended by Fiona of the Waiting Game) and I’m enjoying them both which is a good start to the year. So far, my reading list for 2008 looks something like this:

Peace Like A River by Leif Enger
Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts
Bel Canto by Ann Patchett
Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche
Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche
The Interpretation of Murder by Jed Rubenfeld
The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield
The Beach by Alex Garland
The Ruins by Scott Smith
Star of the Sea by Joseph O’Connor
Alas, Babylon by Pat Frank
The Kite Runner by Khaled Husseini
Skin Privilege by Karin Slaughter
The Milagro Beanfield War by John Nichols
Cold Sassy Tree by Olive Ann Burns